RS 752-CR PIPE WATER PROJECT IN N’PADA, K’HANDI IN LIMBO

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RS 752-CR PIPE WATER PROJECT IN N’PADA, K’HANDI IN LIMBO

 |  | NUAPADA | in Bhubaneswar

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The much-awaited work of the Mega Pipe Water Supply (PWS) project worth Rs  752.44 crore, which was understood to be a blessing for the people of fluoride-affected areas of Nuapada and Kalahandi districts is yet to be started even after two and a half years of its sanction by the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).
The project’s implementation has been trapped within the formalities of sanction and approval of different departments of the State Government. The project was announced by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in 2015.
Basing on the Rural Development (RD) Department letter no.2255 dated April 23, 2015, the tender for execution of the project including five years of operation and management on EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contact for Rs 752.44 crore was invited. There were three bidders and one of them, the Shapoorji Pallonji and Company Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, which offered the contract money for Rs 726.96 crore was selected as the final bidder by the Technical Expert Committee. But when the proposal was submitted to the Government on November 18, 2015 for approval, it got stuck up in the Departments of Finance and RD for eight long months.
The RD Department after eight months, vide its letter no-4425 dated November 21, 2016, informed the office of the Engineer-in-Chief, RWS&S that the project has been rejected. “Govt. has been pleased to reject the proposal for acceptance of tender floated for execution of Mega PWS project in a single package of Rs 752.44 crore and pleased to decide to take up the project in smaller packages,” stated the letter.
The single project was thus divided in to 13 small projects and sent to the Finance Department for Administrative Approval. It took another five months to get sanction of the Nabard and approval of the Government and five more months for floating the tender, which was finally done on May 15, 2017.
The packages, five having more than Rs 50 crore under the EPC mode and the rest eight having less than Rs 50 crore, on normal tender mode were prepared. The scheduled date for opening the technical bid of the tender on the EPC mode was July 27. But only one bidder submitted hard copy of bid document. So, assuming that there is single-bidder participation for the tender, the Engineer-in-Chief on July 24 asked the Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water (PR &DW) Department, for further clarification.
As per Rule 29 of the Appendix-IX of OPWD code, when a single tender is received in the first instance, it shall be cancelled without opening the bid and a fresh tender is invited. Following this rule, the office of the Engineer-in-Chief, RWS&S should have called for a second tender. But instead of doing that, they have asked for an opinion of the PR & DW Department whether to accept the single bid as the second one considering this tender of 2015 for the single project of Rs 752.44 crore as the first.

The Department of PR & DW has not yet responded to this quarry. And now, the fate of the fluoride-affected people of two of the most undeveloped districts of the country hangs in balance.

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